Forty-Five

"Are you sure about this?" Kon asked as he and Diur stood huddled together. The crush of the crowd threatened to shove them against the wall as the screams of the crowd tried to deafen them. Diur nodded as she shuffled her shoulders uncomfortably in her borrowed robes. Turja had given them ratty robes that had little of the high quality her previous robes did. She'd smeared a bit of dirt across her face and wrapped the hilt of her sword in soiled wrappings.

"This will be the most fun I've had since the dockmaster," Diur said with a bloodthirsty smile. Kon suppressed a shudder as Diur broke away from him and headed toward the crowds. Specifically toward the young swordmaster in expensive robes with the emblem of a burning sword on his chest.

The information packet that Turja had supplied them with showed that he was a young master of the Sect of the Purifying Flame. A small but respected set that had produced a number of D-Grades that had gone off-world with the Lupine warpack. His name was Hyth'on and he was apparently the best E-Grade cultivator the sect had.

Kon walked away from the inevitable clash and toward the odds maker sitting on a lounge chair overseeing the fight. An androgynous, milky white alien with snake-like nostrils and four black eyes, as it turned to look at Kon he could see how its skull ended in a long point protruding far afield.

Kon settled on the far edge of the crowd letting the alien's attention fade away from him as he watched the closest fight. A pair of low E-Grade fighters, hardly able to summon an aura, both of them clashing with swords. The ring of steel loud as they fought to keep away from the sharp edge of steel.

"Diur is way better than they are." His training with partner was more fluid, crisp, and lethal in her movements. They had fought against each other often enough that Kon could feel that Diur would clean the floor against both of them.

He looked past them toward Diur as she walked closer to Hyth'on. Right before she entered the cultivators eyesight she adopted a swagger, confidence filling her normally neutral gait. Her shoulders pulled back as she gently brushed against Hyth'on as she passed him.

"Sectless dog!" Hyth'on roared, pulling his sleeve away from her in a violent motion. Diur sneered at him, stepping back and looking him in the eye.

"Mongrel, you bark too loud! Calm yourself before I am forced to calm you!" Diur roared back at him. Hyth'on's face mottled with rage as his hand grabbed at the sword on his hip.

"Kowtow now and I will only relieve you of your life rather than purging nine generations!" Hyth'on screeched.

"Don't mistake yourself for a dragon. Kowtow on the ground like the worm you are, and I will overlook your truthless claims," Diur said, her voice dropping into a growl as she grabbed her own sword pommel. Teno guards forced their way through the crowd, shoving the two of them back away from each other.

"Only fighting allowed is in the pits!" the leader of the group said. This Teno was larger than the others, thick with muscle and carrying a stun baton in his hand. Everyone grew still as Hyth'on froze before nodding and looking toward the closest pit.

Diur leapt in without a word, landing lightly inside of the pit as Hyth'on followed right behind her, hitting the ground on the far side of the pit. Kon pushed through the crowd to arrive next to the odds taker. He looked up to the alien and pulled the four F-Grade stones out.

"On the Ulmna!" Kon yelled up to the bookie before the swords were even drawn.

"Three-to-one," the alien said, grasping the cores from him and handing back a slip of paper in an instant. Kon looked back toward the group, watching as Hyth'on drew his sword and lowered it toward Diur's chest.

"I shall make you beg. If you entertain me enough I'll keep you around as a distraction for my brothers to entertain themselves with," the young master drawled.

"You will not leave this pit alive," Diur said, her voice back to her regular, balanced, neutral tones. Kon winced, she wasn't selling the con very well.

"The young master from the Purifying Flame sect Hyth'on Fyrith. The unnamed wandering cultivator," the Teno guard who had broken them up said, pointing to each as he said their names. Diur drew her sword in a smooth motion, the rasp of steel seeming loud. Hyth'on's eyes locked on the blade, eyes narrowing in suspicion at the well forged blade.

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"So, are you going to silence me? Dog," Diur said mockingly. The sect scion blurred forward, his orange aura lashing out around him, heat blasting forth to roll over the sides of the pit. Fire engulfed his blade to burn as he sliced toward Diur in a single, powerful movement that would have threatened to split her in half.

Diur bent to the side, flowing away from the thick aura, her own blue aura rushing out to blunt the heated edge of power from Hyth'on. Diur sent a series of fast attacks in a blur, each one of them expertly parried. Back and forth they went, the sect cultivator's aura filling the area, dwarfing Diur's as they fought back and forth, pushing and retreating in equal measure.

"She's better at the con than I thought." Diur wasn't throwing the fight, but Kon saw at least two openings that Diur could have taken to end the fight. Instead she let the young swordsman push her around, hardly staying ahead of his blade, her aura small and compact.

Minutes stretched on as Kon felt his breath catch in his chest as Diur spun artfully out of the way of a powerful blow, the edge of the sword catching the sleeve of her robe, fire smoldering as she spun. She ripped the sleeve off with a hard tug, ripping and tossing the sleeve to the side and still catching Hyth'on's next blow high above her head.

The moment stretched out, Hyth'on pushed down, straining against the Diur. She lifted her foot and kicked him in the stomach, her heel bending Hyth'on in half as his breath whooshed out of him. His aura flickered as Diur disengaged in a twirl of her wrist, striking in the blink of an eye.

Hyth'on's head fell to land on the ground, blood pulsing out of his truncated torso. Diur flicked her sword, blood sliding free to splatter against the wall before she resheathed the blade. The crowd had gone silent, stunned silence filling the cavern.

Diur reached down and picked up Hyth'on's sword, tugging his scabbard free and sheathing the blade before tucking it under her arm and leaping straight up out of the pit.

"Any other sect dogs who think they are my equal!" Diur said, faking a heavy pant as she stared them all down. Nobody moved for a moment before the crowd parted to reveal a thin, lean Salamun came forth in black and gold robes, a frill of bright red flaring from the back of its skull.

"You have laid low the lowest of all of us and think you are supreme. You sit at the bottom of a well and think you see the breadth of the world," the Salamun hissed. Kon moved closer to the broker and handed them back the ticket. Cores were placed back in his hand, but Kon didn't move to put the cores away.

"The Ulmna," Kon repeated. The broker blinked, looked over the two circling opponents who were trading insults as Purifying Flame sect members grabbed the corpse and pulled it free. Diur jumped backward to land in the pit, the same spot she'd landed when she started her duel with Hyth'on. She settled her taken sword to the side on the pit.

"Two-to-one. E-Grade for these F-Grades," the broker finally said, snatching up the cores. More sect members were arriving, shoving Kon out of the way as they placed bet after bet on the Salamun, a female named Trissk. She was a spear user, not a core disciple of the Golden Shadow sect, but still a peak member of the outer sect, in line to enter the core group and receive personal tutelage by the Elders.

Trissk landed with a thin spear in hand and her aura already spreading from her feet, a black shadow with glittering light in it. No speaker came forth to announce the duel, the two fighters just clashing in a blur.

Diur was liquid, striking and moving in a blur as the two of them had little room to maneuver in the tight confines. Trissk was better than Hyth'on, but it wasn't by much. She was slightly faster, her jabs and sweeps precise and meant to hem in Diur. It was to no avail, Diur moved liked she was boneless, twisting under the blows or to the side as she closed the distance.

"Spears not the greatest in tight confines." Right as Diur went to strike Trissk, the Salamun's glittering aura flared and the cultivator disappeared, Diur's sword striking the space she'd just occupied.

"Did she teleport?" No, it was just a cloaking measure, the shadows split apart a few feet to the side, Trissk striking at Diur's side. She spun but the speartip drew blood, a narrow cut along her still clothed arm. Diur grunted in pain, but advanced, getting inside of the cultivator's guard and striking once.

Trissk's head fell free, a direct replica of Hyth'on's death. It wasn't shocked silence that greeted her this time, but rather a few cheers from the sectless who cheered their new champion. Two sect darlings dead in seconds and honor reclaimed by those wandering cultivators.

Diur sneered at the slim spear, kicking it to the side as she jumped out of the pit and grabbed her newest sword before heading away, back toward the staircase at the back of the cavern. Kon grabbed his winnings from the broker, pocketing the E-Grade stone and getting away from the broker before it looked too closely at Kon. As he drew away he noticed the rest of the crew that Turja had set out to collect bets pulling away from other bookies. It would be a tidy sum they collected, not enough to truly move the needle for them, but enough to get them started on the right path.

"Guess it's my turn now," Kon said, looking over the crowd and trying to find his target.

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